


He would not stay for me, and who can wonder

by havisham



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Infidelity, Literary References & Allusions, Loss of Trust, M/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2707778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec Deacon doesn't make it easy for himself, or for anyone around him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He would not stay for me, and who can wonder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naraht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/gifts).



> Happy Yule, Naraht! I hope this passes muster. I've had a lot of fun writing it, though merging _The Charioteer_ with the wonderful world of A/B/O was not as easy as I initially thought it would be. 
> 
> **Content note:** This work contains references to suicide, infidelity and and instance of casual Antisemitism.
> 
> Views expressed within this story are not the author's own, except for that burning hatred of Faulkner that she cannot adequately hide.

Alec had the rare afternoon free completely of any kind of work, though he was due at the hospital in the evening. Still, he recognized it as a minor miracle of its kind and was eager to spend the time wisely. Sandy, alas, had not been granted such a reprieve and went out the door looking miserable, deaf to Alec's encouraging words.

But now, finally free of the tumult of the morning, Alec relaxed in his chair, a cup of tea near at hand. All was quiet, all was peace. Alec wanted only to savor it as well as he could.

His eyes had begun to drift closed when he heard a sharp rapping at the door.

Of course.

He was tempted to stay put, let whoever it was keep knocking until they went, but the choice was quickly out of his hands. A familiar voice said, loudly, "Deacon, open up. I need your help."

It was the twice-damned Bunny, Ralph's new ... boy-friend, and damned if he was going to let such a person bring censure (and his landlady's attention) on his home. Alec got up from his chair and opened the door.

Bunny was leaning against the doorframe, his face flushed and his cap at what he clearly believed to be a rakish angle on his head. He gave Alec a dazzling smile.  
"I heard you were in," he said, breezing past Alec to get inside.

"Bunny," Alec said. "What an unexpected pleasure. What can I do for you?"

Bunny turned to look at him, bit his lip and looked momentarily uncertain. "I didn't know who else to ask, you see. I'm as regular as they come, but today, I felt - odd. As if my suppressants weren't working."

Alec hmmed for a moment before saying, "You know, this is the sort of thing you go to the hospital for - don't they have a clinic at the station?"

Bunny shuddered delicately. "My dear, you know I can't go there. It's bad enough to be a male omega - a freak of nature - but I don't even have the decency to be bound to anyone. It's like being in a zoo, I don't like it."

"Now, Bunny that’s hardly the case now; they've made great strides in taking an omega's health as seriously as any beta's," Alec stiffened, as he caught a faint whiff of Bunny's scent, so much stronger now than it had been a few moments ago. "You could just, ah, request a private screening -"

"Please, Alec," Bunny said, his lips trembling either through considerable strain or amusement, "I only want an hour of your time. Can’t you just do me this one kindness?"

“It’s not about kindness - if your suppressants aren’t working, someone should be told. You’re lucky to get them at all, only people in the Forces and sensitive occupations do. Everyone else is left with locking themselves away and hoping for the best. God help you if you're locked in your room when the there’s a raid. I’ve seen the poor omegas they bring in to the hospital, dying from heatstroke. It’s a hideous way to die, you shouldn’t make light of it.”

“If I wanted a lecture, I would’ve asked Ralph,” said Bunny waspishly. “You used to be _fun_ , Alec.”

“Perhaps you should ask Ralph,” Alec said. “You’re living with him, aren’t you?”

“He wouldn't. I mean, he isn't there." Then Bunny said, suddenly abashed. Looking downward, he said, in a more subdued tone, “Besides, you of all people, should know how impossible he can be about these things."

Alec frowned.

Ralph wasn't the only one who could be impossible.

*

The problem with omegas was they could fog up the mind of an alpha - or a beta, such as Alec, who had certain inclinations - at any time of the month. And Bunny - golden haired and blue-eyed, dazzling-- was harder to resist than most. Alec had most of his kit off before he leaned in and took a long sniff of the crook of Bunny's neck. He realized. "You're not in heat."

Bunny chuckled quietly and nipped at Alec's bottom lip. "Well done, doctor! You aren't as unobservant as you seem."

Alec groaned, disgusted with himself. "Failed suppressants, how clichéd. Couldn’t you think of something more original?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Bunny's mouth was warm against his. “Sometimes I think of selling my month’s dose on the black market and just - luxuriating in it. Letting it all go to hell. I have some time off coming up, I could -” 

“No,” Alec said firmly. Then he sighed and wrapped his arms around Bunny.

"You wicked boy," he said, in between demanding kisses, his hands, long-fingered and clever, stealing under the waistband of Bunny's trousers.

"Oh - oh, yes," Bunny agreed, his voice shaking slightly.

*

Over cigarettes, afterward, Alec said decisively, "But this can't happen again, you understand."

Bunny sighed and cast his eyes heavenward, towards the white-washed ceiling of Alec’s bedroom. “It’s always about control with you betas, isn’t it?”

“Being an omega isn’t a license for immorality either,” Alec said, feeling obscurely as if he was quoting someone else. He flushed when he realized that person was probably Ralph. He glared at Bunny, resenting him for his embarrassment.

But Bunny either didn’t realize or he didn’t care. In a bored voice, he said, “We could argue about it, or I could bring you off again.”

Crude, but effective - that was Bunny. 

*

The next week brought with it a party thrown by the infamous Claude. Alec slouched in, tired to the bone. A factory near Bridstow had taken a direct hit and the wards were full to the gunwales with the injured. But if that wasn’t enough, some of the consultants had fallen into rut – their suppressants _had_ failed, supposedly – and that had left the hospital more short-staffed than ever. It was the first free time Alec had had in days, and he wished he didn’t have to go at all, but he couldn’t be seen to be _unsociable_ of all things.

But still, the noise grew too much. He bolted a few drinks in quick succession and then sought a dark corner where he could lick his wounds. He waited for Sandy to come back with more drinks. It was possible he would be delayed - Claude was much more Sandy's friend than he was Alec's. 

In between waiting and watching the crowd, Alec fell quietly to a doze.

He was woken by a hand on his shoulder - he looked up to find, to his pleasure, Ralph looking down at him with a slight smile and a whiskey and soda, which Alec gratefully accepted.

“Are they working you to the bone, old man?” Ralph said, sitting beside him.

“Yes,” said Alec with a yawn. “Some days I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”

“Should I pity your poor patients?”

“They’re all right,” Alec said with a careless wave of his hand. “Either kill or cure, I say.”

“Do you have a habit of killing your patients, Alec?” 

“Only the annoying ones, my dear.” 

Ralph sighed. “Speaking of - Alec, do you have any more of those pills you gave me? For the toothache, I mean,” Ralph said, his hand already held out.

Alec nodded slowly and began to dig around for them. He found a small packet of them in his back pocket and held them out to Ralph, before pulling them away at the last moment. “You promise to use them responsibly?”

“Don’t lecture," Ralph said coolly.

“I try to do my duty,” Alec said piously. But his hands were not as steady as usual, and some of the pills spilled from their packet on to the floor.

“You’re tight already,” Ralph said, pocketing the rest, “I didn’t think you were such a lightweight.”

“I’m tired,” Alec said honestly, “more than anything. Haven't slept in days."

"Who has?"

"At least I know I ought to. I say, where has Sandy gone off to?”

At the mention of Sandy’s name, Ralph straightened up, a barely concealed expression of distaste on his face. “Haven’t seen him. Did you bring him along?”

“Of course I did. I wish you wouldn’t be so harsh with him, he’s suffered too, you know. His father… Anyway, he is really very sweet. I wish you would give him a chance -”

“Alec, my dear,” Ralph began gently.

“I don’t regret it,” Alec said seriously. “And I don’t care if you think I’m not particular as long as we’re all right. We are, aren’t we?”

He looked at Ralph appealingly, feeling no shame about it. Ralph's respect meant more to him now than it had ever done when they were lovers. Alec had feared that Ralph coming around to claim the last of his belongings from Alec's flat would be the last straw for them. The memory of the row still hurt..

 _Ammunition_ , Alec thought suddenly. We have so many things we can use to wound each other. _The only reason we don't is because –_

As if reading his mind, Ralph said, “For God's sake. There's a war on.”

“There is indeed,” Alec said, reaching out to touch Ralph's hand. Ralph drew away from him – it was the wrong hand. “No matter how heavily we drink to forget that essential fact. Would you get me another whiskey?”

Ralph shook his head ruefully and seemed about to relent. But before he could speak, Sandy came in, full of chatter.

“There you are! Oh Alec, I’ve looked everywhere, I should have known - that _alpha_ magnetism - oh,” Sandy said, in a quieter voice, “Alec, are you ill?”

Alec shook his head mutely.

Ralph sprang up as Sandy bent down over Alec, putting a solicitous hand on his forehead. Alec hardly heard Ralph’s parting shot, his whole vision was filled with Sandy, Sandy, Sandy.

*

Alec _did_ love Sandy.

It was hard not to love Sandy, knowing that Sandy loved him, completely. And whatever Ralph had to say about it, Sandy’s life had been a difficult one. His father had been one of those old fashioned alphas, conservative in the extreme, crashingly ignorant of everything around him, and dismal to be around.

Sandy had been lucky to get away when he did, and as a beta too. 

(Though at some point, Alec began to suspect Sandy of envying their less fortunate friends when it came to a certain time of the month. It was the passion that attracted Sandy, Alec supposed, and not the hideous inconvenience.)

But all the same, Alec could see Sandy sometimes, hovering over him, anxious, eager, and so full of _love_ \- and imagine the months and years unfolding out like this, held fast by Sandy’s love, and something began to twitch under Alec’s collar.

It was times like that, he wished that they had never met at all.

But Alec did love Sandy - he knew he did.

What's more, he knew they probably had no time left at all.

*

Bunny showed no surprise when he found Alec at his door, and let him in. Alec had expected to hear some arch observation about expected pleasures but received nothing but a knowing smirk.

Bunny wore a pink robe, thin as tissue, and Alec could see raised gooseflesh on his arm. _Poor fool, it’s too cold for such nonsense_ , Alec thought as he pushed it down Bunny’s shoulders. Bunny’s mouth made a round O of surprise. Perhaps Alec had spoken it aloud.

“My dear,” Bunny said, his voice rougher than usual, “surely you aren’t here for that. Haven’t you come around to share your thoughts on Faulkner?”

Alec paused. “I didn’t know you’d read any Faulkner, Bunny.”

“I have - I read two pages of _As I Lay Dying_ and put it down again. It was all jumbled and incomprehensible, I might have known that you liked it.”

In fact, Alec hadn’t, but he could hardly say so now. Instead he studied the tiny crack of light creeping past the blackout. He wanted, suddenly, nothing more than to turn around and walk away, go home to where it was safe - safer. He disliked the sensation of walking into a trap, however wide-eyed he happened to be.

“Bunny,” he said, “how long have we known each other?”

“Long enough not to bother with Faulkner,” Bunny said, with an impish smile.

The trap snapped shut.

Alec smiled back.

*

Bunny’s bed was a black, Victorian iron monstrosity at odds with the glitter and glass of the rest of the flat. Its hulking presence threw a shadow over the room. Alec supposed it had come with room and was impossible to take out, or else Bunny had kept it because it looked so imposing. He suspected the latter more than the former.

Alec stared up at the ceiling and thought that the stain on the upper left corner looked a little like a malformed tree, with roots like veins spreading before it. He let Bunny work him over and then pushed him away.

"You know, when I first met you, I thought - well, here's a chance to satisfy my curiosity at last," Bunny said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked not thoroughly debauched, but rather firmly on his way to getting there.

Lazily, Alec stretched. "Curiosity about what?"

"Nothing. Only - I didn't think your - er - tribe _had_ Deacons."

"Ah! Sorry to disappoint."

Bunny looked at him critically. "Although..."

"Shall I introduce myself as Alec Deronda from now on?"

"What?"

Alec shook his head.

"Never mind, love," Bunny said gaily, pulling close to Alec, moving until they were close together, skin on skin. His breath whistled against the shell of Alec's ear. "Would you like me to fuck you now or later?"

"Oh, yes," Alec said, "straightaway, if you'd like."

"I will," Bunny said. "But wait a moment, will you?"

He rolled off of Alec and out bed and began to root through the drawer of the bedside table. Alec watched him, dying for a cigarette - or perhaps just dying. He saw a packet in the drawer and held his hand out, asking piteously, "Please sir, may I have some more?"

"Not now, Deacon," Bunny said, the snap in his voice the exact imitation of Ralph's. Instead of recoiling in horror (as he knew he ought) Alec threw his head back and laughed. He was still laughing when Bunny turned his attention back to him.

The bed creaked alarmingly, and Alec came back to his senses. "Your neighbors?"

"Only one on this side and deaf as a post, the poor dear."

Alec shrugged and gave up worrying for the moment.

*

"Damn," Alec said aloud as he felt Bunny's teeth worrying the tender skin of his neck. He gripped the bed post so hard his knuckles turned white. "Don't - Sandy will see."

He turned to look at Bunny, who collapsed on to the bed with a dramatic sigh. Bunny pulled Alec down to him and Alec went willingly enough. His knees were starting to hurt.

"What a tragedy,” Bunny said with a roll of his eyes. “Don't you think he'll smell me on you? Won't Ralph?”

“I do bathe,” Alec said, sniffing. “I think this emphasis on _marking_ is one of the things holding us back as a society.”

“It's only a bit of fun, dear,” Bunny said. “Not a wedding ring.”

Alec groaned.

Bunny went on, louder, “Besides, Ralph isn't one to talk. Of course, you must know his little secret.”

“That's none of our damn business.”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Bunny said, hurt.

“No one would believe you anymore than if you claimed to be an alpha.”

“Why shouldn't I?” Bunny said, “The way he convinces people – it's all a delusion anyway...”

“Come off it, Peter,” Alec said, attempting to sound more gentle. “This is a man's life you're talking about. You must care about him, in your own way, or else why …?”

“Do you care about Sandy?”

“I love him.”

“Ralph doesn't love me,” Bunny said, “but he likes what I do to him.”

“Isn't that enough?”

“No, it _isn't_ ,” Bunny said.

That was that.

 

*

 

Alec left Bunny lounging in bed, half-asleep, and dressed as quietly as possible. After opening the door an inch, he peered out into the empty hallway. He heard no footsteps, in either direction. Casually, Alec left the flat, closing the door behind him.

He went down steps rapidly, thankful to get away -- only to run into Ralph at the bottom of the stairs, just as he was coming in.

"Alec, come up, have you been waiting long?” Ralph said, taking a hold of Alec’s arm, lightly enough to not to startle.

Alec smiled back at him, but he nearly stuttering when he said, “S-sorry, I can’t wait any longer. My shift starts in half-an-hour. How about a drink later?”

“If you'd like,” Ralph said. 

Ralph looked already doubtful when a voice called down the stairs. They looked up at Bunny -- dressed, thank God -- with Alec’s hat in hand.

“You forgot your hat,” he said.

“Has he? The sly devil,” Ralph said tonelessly. He let go of Alec's arm immediately.

Alec could not reply. It was as if his senses had abandoned him entirely. He sprinted up the stairs, snatched the hat from Bunny, said goodbye to Ralph (who said nothing back) and was out the door in a matter of minutes, as if hounds were nipping at his heels. 

 

*

 

Later, he came home and found Sandy huddled at his desk, revising. His fair head rose at the sound of Alec’s footsteps.

“Tea?” he asked hopefully, and Alec nodded, unsure if it was a request or an offer.

It was an offer, as it turned out. Alec waited at Sandy’s desk, idly leafing through his notes until he came back, and accepted the cup with a smile. They enjoyed a quiet moment, the only sound the rustling of papers and the clink of tea-cups against saucers. 

After a while Alec realized Sandy was looking at him, a strange look in his eye. Alec wondered if he knew and if he knew, what he would do.

 _Damn, not again_ , Alec thought, _he wouldn't dare. Not again._

After what seemed an eternity, Sandy said, quite pleasantly: "I ‘ve been meaning to ask you, Alec, but you’ve been so busy lately. What would you like for your birthday?"

Alec sighed and shook his head. "Nothing -- nothing that I can think of.”

Sandy pouted. “You won’t make it easy for me?”

Alec leaned in and placed a kiss on Sandy's cheek. “I never do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Housman. [Source](http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/he-would-not-stay-me-and-who-can-wonder).
> 
> I would like to thank my betas, oonaseckar and lilliburlero! Oona, please note that your suggestions are the ones people liked the most! Lilliburlero, you are a gem. I'm glad this story amused you on your lunch break. Cheers, to the both of you!


End file.
